D&D ROGUE RANKING (pt. 1) 

My god that's terrible

I gave your comment a heart not because I'm glad you never got any magic items, but hopefully to cast a cure wounds on your painful memories.

@@esperthebard I believe that would be a calm emotions. Cure wounds heals only physical damage, I've tried.

GOOD LORD WHAT KIND OF SOCIOPATH WAS YOUR DM?!?

It's the most valuable and painful of lessons: when it comes to this game, try to find an experienced Storyteller over a veteran DM. Everyone has different ideas of what a DM should bring to the table, but everyone can agree when they have been able to play with an experienced storyteller. A ST understands character development, in the vein of the Heroes Journey, is just as important as the game they want to run on everyone.

Too bad you can only use that healer feat ability once per day per character... but that is a damned nice use.

I think what really kills thief rogue is the fact that arcane trickster gets a similar feature with mage hand legerdemain as well as being 1/4th caster.

@@Shichiaikan, it's once per short rest per character. Meaning that you can use it multiple times per day. Combined with the Inspiring Leader Feat for preventative healing, which is also once per short rest, you don't need a magical healer in the party.

@@carsonrush3352 on top of using magic items that use Healing without class restrictions, yeah, Theif has a lot of versatility in the right hands.

Kobold press monster manuels look. it up

So you can counter a counter with a counter which takes his counter as your own counter to later use as another counter to counter his counter.

@@jpc4803 it's like a pokemon learning the move disable from their opppent and then disabling their disable lol.

Not really, spell thief can be used when your character is affected by a spell. Counter spell affects spells.

@@yotuel9064 but targets the caster, so it effects them

That's true, though I wasn't talking about an unconscious target, but rather someone who is like eating, reading, or otherwise really distracted.

The point being that there is no chance of failure if they aren't resisting and you have easy access to their jugular, yet the game makes it seem like combat rules are mandatory. If a wizard with more hp than your sneak attack gets assasinated by you and they don't notice your presence, how does their ability to keep fighting and will to survive [a.k.a. hp] calculate in?

@@esperthebard My bad, I was doing work while listening to the video. As a DM I would say you still need to roll to hit but obviously with advantage. Like any other combat, all people involved roll initiative first but the initially unaware creature is surprised the first round if you beat their perception with stealth or possibly deception, sleight of hand, or performance. Rolling initiative simulates someone's split second ability to react in combat. Even if I am a wizard and am the one being attacked while eating and I win the initiative roll, I am still surprised my first turn and cannot act. The enemy attacks at advantage, but because I won initiative and am no longer surprised, I can now take reactions at the last moment and maybe cast Shield. It's just an example, but that's why we roll initiative. It simulates your ability to spring into action. Maybe it was the sound of the enemy's blade ringing through the air towards my neck that tipped me off. Maybe I saw their reflection at the last second in a window coming up behind me. It's only when you are unconscious or paralyzed that it is physically impossible to use your fast twitch muscles to reactively dodge an attack. That's what makes the assassin unique. The ability to auto crit anyone surprised represents their skill and ability to take away any chance of seeing/hearing/sensing them coming so a surprised target won't do that split second reaction to dodge making it so they are standing still for the assassin as if they were unconcious.

@@ATinyWaffle The following is only food for thought and not meant to insult you or the way you DM games. This world needs more DMs and DnD players. Keep DM-ing. Much love, stay safe. In my opinion, if you sneak up on an unsuspecting enemy, that doesn't notice you, there is no need for any initiative roll at this point in the game. After the attack has been dealt and if the target is still alive and/or other creatures are in the vicinity, yes. Because then the assassination has evolved into a combat scenario. You bring up the argument: "Rolling initiative simulates someone's split second ability to react in combat." Well, the assassination isn't combat, yet in my opinion. Combat is two parties battling each other, which isn't happening here. The unsuspecting enemy is not battling me. If the enemy notices the Rogue, because of how the stealth and perception rolls played out, then the assassination attempt will of course fail and combat will be started (with initiative rolls and no one being surprised). But if the Rogue successfully sneaks up on his opponent - decided by the dice - and is able to land that strike on him, there is no - to quote you - "the sound of the enemy's blade ringing through the air towards my neck that tipped me off". If there was any sound, that tipped you off, that would have been determined by the stealth rolls / perception rolls. Let's say the Rogue fails his stealth roll. You could then say, that "as your Rogue gets close to the target's back, drawing the dagger you make a slight noise, that tips off the enemy to your presence. The enemy is aware of you. Roll initiative." But if the stealth roll of the Rogue was successful, why would there be anything, that tips the target off to any presence? If I play this Rogue this just means to me, that my stealth rolls do not matter at all. Because even if I get a 30 with bonuses, there might always something at the last nanosecond "tipping my opponent off". So I don't even bother rolling for stealth in the first place and just walk in, daggers drawn. Of course, if there was combat initiated by someone else and the Rogue of the party manages to sneak around the backside of the room on the first round (or starts doing so even before combat is initiated) into his targets back and attack him, then we'd also have the whole "Assassinate" feature of the Assassin Rogue playing out. But if the Rogue sneaks up on someone before any open combat has been initialized, I don't think there should be any initiative orders, that need to be rolled. Enemies noticing the Rogue, that's what the perception rolls of everyone in the room and the stealth roll of the Rogue are there for. Not initiative orders (again, in my opinion). You get what I mean?

@@felixrivera895 I'm guessing HP are used here so that players don't get one-shot by enemies when in the same circumstances.

I said the same. You are supposed to use it all the time. Attacking from being hidden gives advantage, which means crit fishing. If you get rushed you rush with a dash while still being allowed to attack. If you have to escape from close combat you use disengage to escape without having to prep your a-hole for all of the violation you will otherwise get trying to run.

@@Cloud_Seeker Yeaaaaaah, this just tells me that he's never actually played a Rogue. It's more accurate to say, "You won't get significant mileage out of this more than a few times a combat, so your value on this may vary", but uh. This ability literally allows the Rogue to function as an effective Sneak Attacker, because this is a game of positioning. Bad analysis imho.

Really disappointed in this review who has played Rogue to 13th. He really giving a bad review the cunning action feature.

if you have +100 persuasion and convince your DM that cunning action should include Dodge, well then...

@@schintzel That is the monks ability.

Damn it now i have to clean up this mess

You better hope Xanathar isn't watching this.

my next Rogue theme: "if you receive a goldfish as a gift, the Goldfish Syndicate of assassins is coming after you."

Xanathar is always watching.

Locathah player: "Hey, wait a minute..."

but you couldn't spell thief power word kill .. you are limited to spells of 1st level or higher that are of a level you could cast, and there is no way you could cast a 9th level sell as a rogue with at least 17 levels

@@Tersidian It depends on when this happened. 5th Edition has recieved many updates (Called "Errata") throughout the years. It could be that part of the ability had yet to be added.

@@The_Crimson_Witch technically true, but checked in a first print (august 2014) and checked official errata documents for PHB before posting, so i'm about 99% sure that it has always been a part of the Spell Thief feature, of course it still could be a house ruling or a simple "Rule of Cool" application

@@Tersidian The way I read it, you can use Spell Thief to negate spells of any lvl, but you only get to actually steal spells that are of a low enough lvl.

you technically couldn't do that since you don't have that spell slot, but it's not cheating if the dm doesn't know it :)

The sorcerer is one of my favorite 5E classes.

I like Jibb, they seem nice.

@@matteussilvestre8583 I like the cut of his jib.

"Shadow Blacksaber." Hmm. it would seem, just from the name, that the rogues who kidnapped you should have asked your name first. Would have saved a lot of bother later. "Oh, the youngest of the Blacksaber's, well that's Shadow." Next.

I'm Chuck from Cleveland.

Thank you too Joseph!

Laughs in moon druid

Well, we always have exceptions XD

moon druid, * laughing in Mammoth*

Also laughs in barbarian and cleric

@@jazoinklastname4289 Also laughs in figther, cus yall beter not sleep on the guy who can do 8 attacks in one round.

even better, it stacks with oil and alchemist fire, or acid covered ground up glass. or stabbing someone with a hunting trap over there head

I mean they also have a Nice 7th level, evasion plus then you can combine shadow blade plus booming blade for better damage

They level off until they reach 17th level, at which point they can Steal Counterspell From a Counter Caster. Which is Rediculous.

Levels 6-12 are pretty good. They get expertise in two more skills, then they get Shadow Blade, Invisibility, and Evasion, then they get an ASI, then they get Magical Ambush, then they get an ASI, then they get reliable talent, then they get an ASI (and they still pick up 3 D6 of Sneak attack in this range). Level 7 is especially powerful. All of those ASIs & Feats are great, especially for a Rogue that might want to grab war caster and resilient constitution to keep shadow blade up during combat, and might also be intrigued by Lucky (or Elven Accuracy), Mage Slayer, Sharpshooter, Defensive Duelist, Dual Wielder, Alert, or Ritual Caster. They'll for sure have 20 dexterity by this time, so the extra ASI/feat at level 10 gives them a lot of customization options. Level 5 is disappointing though. Martial classes get extra attack, spell casters get 3rd level spells and a 2nd damage die for their cantrips. And Rogues get another D6 of Sneak Attack and Uncanny Dodge.

To be honest I find most of the 1/3rd level casters have alot of problems namely the fact they are limited to two spells schools and in an edition were the spell lists have been massivly cut back on.

I watched the Warlock episode earlier in the evening. Feels weird that I see my favourite class after watching one of my favourite but I'll take it

“Pocket sand!”

That's pretty good.

bibbobella Subscrib

"see war cleric 1/wizard x" ? A limited number of """extra attacks""" that also eat your bonus action? No flaming sphere, no bigby, no animate objects? Sorry not seeing it. But its true EKs are shafted, and its sad that straigh bladesinger is better eldritch knight than an eldritch knight in 5e.

Please explain why war cleric 1 is good with wizard x

Ok Texteel and Buck I'll explain it. In the cleric spell prepare it says "You prepare the list of cleric spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the cleric spell list. When you do so, choose a number of cleric spells equal to your Wisdom modifier + your cleric level (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots." It it says "of a level for which you have spell clots" it means level spells. Cleric and Wizards are full casters so let's say level 1 war cleric/ war magic (for example) wizard 2 you still have 4 1st level and 2 2nd level spells. This is or your cleric spells so if you go 19 levels of wizard and 1 level of war wizard it means you have the full spell slots with the cleric spell list with your wizard spell list. The bonus action attack of war priest is icing on the top of what the base class is. It gives martial weapons, heavy armor, Shield, and 2 bonus spells which are both pretty good with shield of faith syncing well with war magic wizard 10 giving you +4 to your AC on a 1st level spell slot. On top of a shield which gives +2. This is also not taking account you just need just 15 str to put on heavy armor and even then the only penalty is 10 feet reduction to movement speed which is a pay off for 16-18 base AC without a shield in hand. The drawback to Wizard is they are easy to hit, with war cleric you now have a bucky AC to any wizard you want. Combine that with basically 2 spell lists one being cleric and the other being wizard. Really you just need 14 Wis as you taking cleric spells to heal or to buff while using Int for your more offensive potiential. It's high flexibility with little to no cost if you got the stats for it.

@@texteel You still get flaming sphere, you still get Bigby, you still get animate objects. You just get healing magic as well along with posted AC. Hell you can now use your familiar to deliver healing spells. touch only cleric buffs.

@@WhyYouMadBoi 90% of the things of said work with multiple domains. You specified War domain. To use war domain exclusive things, you give up flaming sphere, bigby, animate objects. There goes half of your arguement. You get cleric spells with whichever domain, but lets see them, shall we? Now. Do you want heavy armor? How about forge? Make that heavy armor into a +1 heavy armor. Or life domain, to patch up your healing spells and not great wisdom. Tempest is also something that isnt the best for such a dip, with a reaction that only damages back. Nature domain also gives you heavy armor for some reason, a bonus cantrip and a skill. Order domain gives you armor, a skill, and constant utility. Hell, if you need just martial weapons, death domain also exsist. The only reason to go war over any of those, if you need armor AND martial weapon, for some reason.

Expertise cannot be applied to a tool proficiency apart from thief's tools. A better point would have been that the best crafters are humans, half elves and half orcs who took the Prodigy feat from Xanathar's.

It's definitely better than Investigator, mechanically.

It has some of the best rp potential and the help action when used with a flexible and creative gm allows for a lot of cool things.

I do like to mix it with healers kits, ball bearings, caltrops, the previous two mixed together, bags of flour, tinderboxes, bags of flour and then tinderboxes, and miscellaneous

Having a lot of fun with an inquisitive rogue. It is much better in reality than it seems on the paper. Expertise in Insight and Perception, 20WIS at level 8 plus observant feat is damm cool. I find arcane trickster and inquisitve the most fun rogue subclasses to play. Mastermind is special because of the help action, but after sometime becomes boring. Rogues are cool, but the combat is more or less always the same (hit and hide). Inquisitive rogues have some kind of unique freedom. You attack whichever target you like, you have free bonus actions for RP, search, disengage, and even sometimes to hide. It is more demanding strategically. Swashbucklers have something similar, but I prefer Inquisitve's flavor and RP potential. Like Esper said, instead of playing an arcane trickster, I'd rather play a bard. Instead of Swashbluckler, a fighter, a bard or even a bladesinger. Unless I build a pirate...

But a 1 in 20 choices of doing this isnt realistic. In reality, beating a veteran of the form is incredibly unlikely, in-game, its very possible. If someone knoks over a vase 1 in 20 times, theyre gonna make an awful thief afterall. Someone who has a strength of 10 (completely average human), should never out wrestle a bodybuilder

@@avatarmufasa3628 without risk there is no game. Also rolling 2d10 instead of 1d20 leads to more consistent results with almost exactly the same range of outcomes. Simple fix.

Or a fly interrupts your concentration. A non-skilled person who rolls a 20 simply got lucky with what they tried to achieve. A skilled person that rolls low has a series of unfortunate events(various distractions or interruptions, usually out of their control) that might cause you to fail what you were doing.

@@avatarmufasa3628 there are no critical fails on skill checks

I've had some good luck, the occasional back to back 20, one time I got 7 20 in a row however.... I usally role like a professional golf player, trying to get the ball in a blackhole at the center of a crater. As someone who roles terrible, absolutely atrocious most of the time, it matters. I play dnd because I want to succeed, to do well, not because I want to be a complete idiot who can't achieve the one thing I was built to do, the only thing my parties expects of me and yet it happens all to often. In 4e I could stack a skill so high that even on a 1 I would still pass. Maybe if I stretched it I could get 3 skills I didn't have to worry about failing. But in 5e you can be a God of music and still suck at a performance check to play THE most basic instrument. Nothing quite as sucky as the gm bending the rules giveing double advantage on a roll and you failing 3 times in a row, then doing it again 5min later and getting your party caught and thrown into the a hole. If it were real life nobody would accept the character into their party (konasuba) and I would Mercy kill the character. It sucks and it would be nice to be a master at at least one thing without haveing to worry about failing.

tell me about it. Just try finding sources for Warforged.

Mystara is packed with excellent races found in no other settings.

Agreed. Also, some of these abilities does not require the same "checks" that a spell of similar use does. When you create a false identity or impersonate someone, everyone thinks you are said person and will only be suspicious if your behaviour is odd. It also bypasses anti-magic fields and the like. There is no time limit either. Combine it with feats like Actor, Keen Mind or Observant for even greater effect.

Then you should bump the reliable talent making it better

I agree with and disagree with you. I love the Rouge and there are a lot of things you can do with it, however the wizards ablitie to out shine most classes is ridiculous. While It dosent make me play wizard always it really sucks when the wizard steam rolled my Rouge. A lot of this comes down to the gm putting in more work to balance the game. And with busy schedules and work this dosent happen enough. I usally find the gm swing to the extremes, either never putting in blocks to wizard makeing them out class everyone or always putting in the blocks makeing the person wonder why they even chose to play. I've had a lot of gms and a good gm will make a game one of the best ways to spend your life. But most gms have reality to condend with and usally go rules as written with a some prep advantage wizard.

Have you tried going Scout + Gloom Stalker Ranger? Become the ultimate darkness hunter. Tracking and stealthing. Be better at nature then the Druid and have more passive perception then the guy that picked the observant feat.

Cant argue with the incredible damage though. It's actually really good in more urban campaign settings or if you set up the situation itself. And Assassin Rogue is built around setting up perfect kills (though that package is questionable)

Yeah, she has a good video on it

but in a large ,totally not suspicious barrel with a smiley face crudely painted on it

Daniel Lopes A super simple change would be to give uses of Bardic Inspiration when you roll initiative even when you have uses left.

I would give one die every turn that you don't have any of them

I'd say... Whenever you use your Bardic Inspiration, you can target up to your Charisma Modifier of allies to bestow your inspiration. And if you apparently want Esper the Bard levels of 20, inspiration grants advantage on your roll.

But that is entirely your party's fault. There are several ways for the party to scout ahead unnoticed(many spells) so that you can formulate a plan. Even the Assassin itself could be sent to scout ahead, then report back with what they have learned. Obviously, it wont be possible for every encounter(when you are actively being chased or chasing something), but for the typical "let us explore this area" situation, you should have the means to learn about your surroundings without being detected.

Amazing XD

Narrator might be a Kobold, just saying....

Huh? I didn't really understand what you mean. Did your Ranger become worse or did you outshine someone else?